The Green Scorpions have shut down ArcelorMittal operations at its Vaal waste site over its dumping of hazardous waste and air and water pollution, it was announced on Tuesday.
The move followed numerous ”futile attempts” at getting the steel company to clean up its act, Gauteng’s department of agriculture, conservation and environment said in a statement.
Environmental management inspectors, better known as the Green Scorpions, had found a ”series of non-compliances” by the Vereeniging-based company.
”Based on these violations, the department issued a notice providing the company with an opportunity to make representations to the department about the cases of non-compliance and the stern actions available to the department in cases of such negligence,” said department spokesperson Sizwe Matshikiza.
”Having studied submissions from this company, as well as other applicable information, and [been] dissatisfied with the company’s representation, the department issued a directive and compliance notice against the company,” he said.
This was in addition to a criminal investigation into the dumping of waste at the Vaal site despite repeated directions to stop, he said.
Matshikiza said the notice instructed ArcelorMittal to stop all operations at the site other than the removal of 100 000 tons of magnetite dumped there.
It gave the company until the end of December 2008 to remove this ”hazardous waste” and to address the ”serious pollution” resulting from its ”historical disposal”, he said
ArcelorMittal was instructed to submit an amended rehabilitation plan for the disposal site, and provide alternative sites to which waste would be taken.
It was also required to submit its outstanding environmental performance audit report.
Matshikiza said ArcelorMittal could appeal against the notice and request a suspension of its operation. ArcelorMittal could not immediately be reached for comment.
In the meantime, inspectors would closely monitor the company’s compliance with the notice.
Earlier this month, the Green Scorpions revealed shocking levels of air, ground and water pollution uncovered at Highveld Steel and Vanadium Corporation’s Vanchem plant outside Witbank in Mpumalanga.
They also detailed ”significant and serious” pollution of surface and groundwater with phenols, iron, oil fluoride and other hazardous substances at ArcelorMittal’s steel plant in Vereeniging.
The Green Scorpions further found ”significant” uncontrolled dust emissions, and ”serious non-compliance” with a hazardous waste-site permit at Assmang’s ferromanganese operation at Cato Ridge.
At the time, the department said it had been ”taken aback” at the levels of non-compliance in the iron and steel and ferro-alloy industry sector, whose processes could significantly contribute to pollution if not properly mitigated and managed.
”Many of the operating companies are extremely profitable multinationals who have access to all the information and resources they require to come into compliance with environmental legislation.
”However, it appears that they have chosen to disregard their obligations to the law and the environment and people affected by their operations,” it said.
The ArcelorMittal closure is the latest in a series of blows for the company.
In the first week of October, the Competition Commission recommended that a planned merger between ArcelorMittal and Duferco Steel Processing be prohibited as it would ”substantially prevent or lessen competition”.
This followed a R691,8-million fine imposed on the company by the Competition Tribunal in September for fixing prices by making sales at reduced prices, but contractually preventing buyers from passing on the savings. — Sapa